


Senseless & Lacking Sensibility

by FermionCat, Wolven_Spirits



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Fluff, Harry also has Plans, Humor, Idiots in Love, M/M, Morsflorem, Possessive Tom Riddle, Tom has Plans, Wedding, who out-plans whom?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-19
Updated: 2019-09-19
Packaged: 2020-10-10 17:31:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20531843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FermionCat/pseuds/FermionCat, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wolven_Spirits/pseuds/Wolven_Spirits
Summary: Worlds Collide in Resounding Explosion of Love!The Daily Prophet is pleased to announce the marriage of Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, to Tom Riddle, best known for his status as You-Know-Who. A thrilling tale of forbidden love, writes Rita Skeeter, Special Correspondent. Known for his friendships with snakes, half-giants, and werewolves, Potter seems to have made his biggest leap yet, this time with a Dark Lord. Your venerable reporter does have to wonder what this means for the future of the Wizarding World. Turn to page 7 for more.





	Senseless & Lacking Sensibility

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Alexiel_19](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alexiel_19/gifts), [RedHorse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedHorse/gifts).

You’d think that a six-foot-and-then-some Dark Lord would be easy to find, but nooo. Apparently not.

Firstly, let it be known that Harry wouldn’t call himself _ needy _ by any definition of the word. He really was only the teensiest tiniest bit worried, okay? The wedding planning had been going swimmingly; _ too _ well, in fact, to the point where it only seemed to make Tom freak out even more. And if Harry’d just _ happened _ to notice the new line of tension in Tom’s shoulders (the muscle constantly ticking in his jaw, maybe) he could hardly be blamed for that. Because Harry certainly did _ not _spend extended periods of time staring at his fiancé’s mouth-watering jawline instead of helping out with wedding stuff. Ahem. So yeah, Harry was presently searching their cottage for Tom, because a stressed-out Tom was a volatile Tom, and a volatile Tom was too-often a combustive Tom.

Harry found him in the glass-paneled sunroom that had been repurposed as a (read: Tom’s) workroom. He took a moment to simply lean against the open threshold, relishing the opportunity to watch his soulmate at work. The room’s ambient temperature reflected perfect June weather, and the early-morning sunlight saturated the space, swathing Tom’s handsome form and softening his aristocratic cheekbones until he looked…well, approachable. Tom was wearing a simple white button-down with casual ease, its sleeves rolled up in crisp exactitude to reveal vein-roped forearms. Harry watched the way Tom turned a page in his book, making those powerful ropey cords shift subtly beneath his pale skin. Merlin, Harry suddenly found that he had to swallow.

A lump had spontaneously formed in his throat, so he tried to cough discreetly. Then realized, with a sigh, that Tom was far too distracted by the jumbled mess of paper on the heavy wood desk to notice anyways. 

So, he announced the following magic words into the warm, happy air filling the sunroom: “So! I’ve been thinking of what I’d like for my birthday this year.”

Tom didn’t actually respond, but his quill’s nonstop scratching slowed down enough that Harry knew he was listening. Probably. “I could ask for birthday sex on a beach somewhere...Brighton, maybe?” he mused aloud after it became clear that Tom had zero intention of contributing to the conversation. He didn’t even turn around, the absolute tosser, which was _ probably _ a good thing in retrospect because Harry’s cheeks hurt from the effort it took to keep from grinning like an insane loon. Although Harry rather thought that he did detect a faint, irritated twinge in Tom’s neck muscles. Maybe he _ was _ having some effect.

Well, only one way to find out. “Or, if you’d rather visit the Scottish Highlands, we could go to Portree,” Harry cocked his head, still trying to think of ways to make Tom stop ignoring him. “I think the Portree Prides are playing the Chudley Cannons that weekend. We could get tickets!” 

Tom had always known that his aspirations were lofty and nigh-unattainable, but this…this was beyond the pale.

"—We could get tickets!"

Tom forced himself to take a deep, shuddering breath before releasing it in a heavy gust that ruffled the sheets of parchment systematically strewn across his workstation. A page flipped over to reveal an intricately-drawn diagram: framework for a potential ritual; he snatched the page off the table and pored over it eagerly. _ Yes, with a bit of revision this should prove suitable for his machinations. _ "But wouldn’t you rather have a more romantic honeymoon, darling boy?" he remarked over his shoulder with exaggerated carelessness. When Harry proved too slow in his response, Tom turned around and affected indulgent consideration: "Of course, we could absolutely drop by if that is your heart’s desire."

He studied his Harry searchingly and noted the way his cheeks reddened attractively, the corners of his mouth drifting upwards at Tom’s show of attention. He permitted himself a small smirk and dragged his lingering gaze across Harry’s lips in order to fluster him further. Harry visibly wavered before he spoke, all in a rush: "Er...right. Desire." He fidgeted at the hem of his maddeningly plain t-shirt and inadvertently pulled it askew: just far enough to expose the angled ridge of a single clavicle. 

Tom was careful to maintain his impassive expression as he tracked his Harry’s reckless motion with rapacious eyes. He only raised a supercilious eyebrow at Harry’s expense. “I certainly wouldn’t be opposed to honeymooning at the Isle of Skye,” he pitched his voice a semitone lower and watched, satisfied, as Harry trembled involuntarily. 

Harry was fidgeting again: tracing his tanned fingertips across dry, chapped lips over and over. Tom quashed the powerful urge to abandon his work entirely, to rise and stalk to his Harry's side, to wrest Harry’s hand from its desecration of that _ distracting _ mouth. Instead, he drawled: “But. If I am to trail along wasting my precious time on such inanity as _ Quidditch _, my dear...then I must regrettably decline.”

Harry gulped, and Tom tracked the bobbing motion of his larynx greedily. “Er— that’s fine! We don’t have to go see any Quidditch at all!”

He settled back into his seat and graced Harry with another subtle smirk, letting the left side of his mouth twitch upwards into something like approval. "I suppose you occasionally have good ideas," he allowed, before diverting his attention back to his worktable with a definitive air of finality. There was no need to observe Harry for his reaction: Tom already _ knew _ .

Harry pouted, then winced when his already-chapped lips split painfully. On the one hand, he was actually pretty grateful that Tom had spun back around because he couldn’t quite suppress an eye-roll. _ As if _ he was actually going to make Tom go with him to watch Quidditch. Harry sniggered quietly to himself: the thought of Tom sitting in the stands with a butterbeer, wearing some player’s jersey was utterly ridiculous. But on the other hand, it seemed that Tom didn’t have the slightest inclination to leave off his work no matter how much Harry tried to tempt him. Oh, Tom had _ looked _, and the full force of those piercing red eyes was...indescribable. But he hadn’t even gotten out of his chair! What a failure.

The absolute _ gall _ of him, really. Harry knew — deep, deep down — that he ought to feel incredibly insulted that that was all the rise he’d managed to get out of Tom for all he’d done to flaunt his body, but the little niggle of requisite outrage was just that: a niggle. Come to think of it, that was probably also because of Tom’s unfairly mesmerizing eyes, if Harry was being completely honest with himself.

Really, those eyes ought to be illegal. All too often, Harry found himself sweating a little bit at 1) how hot they made Tom and 2) how worried they made Harry. Because he wasn’t Tom’s prophesied enemy for nothing; he’d bet good Galleons that he knew the Dark Lord better than anyone alive. He, of all people, wouldn’t put it past Tom to say something drastic and heartless like _ I’ll just murder all the guests because all this wedding business is just _ ** _so_ ** _ far beneath my oh-so-precious time and effort _.

And hell if Harry would let _ that _ happen.

❦

Okay, so two weeks had gone by and Harry was starting to realize that he may have been the teensiest bit overambitious? Because all the wedding stuff was making Tom downright _ hellish _ to live with. Harry was torn between the urge to take over all the planning just to spare the both of them some stress and the urge to simply run out the front door for some time away from Tom’s...Tom-ness (and a third, unacknowledged urge to shove Tom up against the bookshelves in the sunroom, or maybe his <del>meticulously messy</del> No-Harry-don’t-touch-that-or-you’ll-mess-up-my- _ system _ worktable, and snog him until his not-at-all attractive brain couldn’t figure out which way was up, let alone conjure up diabolical plots). Not that Harry’d ever admit it out loud, but he had needs too, alright? And with Tom’s stress levels lately, Harry had hardly gotten laid _ at all _. 

It was the last of these Two(2) Urges that convinced Harry to volunteer for the errand: checking up on the caterers. 

"I’m going out to ask that bakery in Knockturn Alley if they could tack on some last-minute custom orders!" he shouted from the coat-room, where he’d been squatted over a plastic bucket gutting Lionfish that Tom _ insisted _ were absolutely necessary, no he didn't care that Harry'd done bucketloads for Snape already, no he _ really _ didn't care how many detentions' worth of Lionfish had been eviscerated before, and wasn't it Harry's fault anyway for landing himself in detention in the first place? 

"You're not going!" Tom called back from (big surprise) the workroom. 

Harry elected to ignore Tom’s stirring counterargument. "They’ve got experience working with your vampire buddies, right?!" he yelled into the bowels of their home, already reaching for the doorknob with one hand because he knew quite well what to expect— 

"_ I SAID, YOU'RE NOT GOING! _" Tom roared, and from deep within their cottage came the rustling sound of papers being knocked to the floor, then a loud bang that could only be Tom ramming his knees into the massive worktable (it must suck to be so tall), then the inevitable cursing. 

"I'll be back later!" Harry shouted hastily, already one foot out the door. His fingers were still oozing with Lionfish guts, but clearing out of the disaster zone was definitely Priority Number One right now. Besides, Tom had been _ very _ distracted lately, and Harry gave it a fifty-fifty chance that Tom would have forgotten all about it by the time he was back. He'd take those odds.

_ That brat _ . He watched incredulously as Harry sprinted to the apparition-point just outside the range of Tom’s protective wards and promptly dis-Apparated without a single backwards glance. _ The absolute gall _— 

With an enraged shriek, he detonated the bucketful of half-gutted Lionfish in a rainshower of fishy blood. Even the reassuring knowledge that he would simply force Harry to clean the gore-spattered walls later was not enough to assuage his temper. He viciously kicked open the front door and stormed towards the apparition-point, half a mind to pursue the ungrateful imp and drag him, kicking and screaming, back within the boundaries of Tom’s domain where he would _ show _ the brat his place: on his knees, his mouth no longer inclined towards spouting trivialities when put to a far better use, wrapped around Tom’s— 

_ No. No, he mustn’t forget himself. _ He had to remember his plan; he just needed to stick to his _ plan _, and then Harry would never prove capable of escape again, would be evermore at Tom’s mercy. 

_ Yes, _ Tom flexed his hands absently. _ Yes, that would do. _ His fingers seized of their own accord and he looked down at them with an odd sense of detachment; he still very much wanted to stalk his soul, to imprison his Harry within his property, to strip him of his faculties and throw him into a cage and keep him under lock and constrictive key. 

_ Patience. Restraint. _

His control was presently far too tenuous. He needed to siphon off his all-encompassing rage before Harry returned, before he did anything inadmissible and counterproductive. He turned on his heel with a whirl of his cloak, en route to Malfoy Manor for a spot of therapeutic Cruciatus.

❦

Scarcely a week and three impromptu therapy sessions had passed, and the damn brat was — somehow, someway — _ still _ treading upon his bottomless well of patience. Harry was simply that infuriatingly mule-headed: he _ insisted _ that Albus Dumbledore be tapped to officiate the proceedings and point-blank refused to back down on the matter. His naivete had bypassed _ charming _ completely, was now barrelling down a collision course with _ annoying _. 

“He’s the one who got us together!” Harry yelled in a puerile fit of temper. 

Carefully, Tom placed his quill upon his sturdy wooden worktable with rigid fingers. He found that he was forced to grit his words through clenched teeth: “Albus Dumbledore is a senile old fool.” 

“No, he’s not,” Harry said, defiant and accusing. “You just don’t want to admit it.” 

Tom closed his eyes and mentally recited his plans like a mantra. It took nearly all his self-control to keep from casting the Imperius Curse on his Harry, simply to be done with the whole matter. “I have nothing to _ admit _ ,” he hissed. “He is a threat. I will _ not _ have him playing such a prominent role!” 

“Oh, come off it,” Harry said irritably. Tom wanted to grab him by the shoulders and shake. “I get that you’re paranoid, but he’s got no reason to sabotage—” 

Tom only sniffed derisively. 

Harry’s mouth fell open. “He’s the most brilliant wizard of our time! He’s not going to, to _ botch _ it!” 

Tom stilled. Clenched and unclenched his hands with a repressed, impulsive need for his wand. “Oh, really now?” he queried once he was certain his inflections would remain light. Controlled. “_ The most brilliant wizard of our time? _” 

Harry was backing away slowly, out the open door of the workroom. Both his hands were up and open-palmed as though attempting to placate an apex predator. Perhaps he was. But Tom would never allow his Harry to escape again. 

With a wordless snarl, Tom crossed the length of the room in two long strides and seized Harry’s right arm, wrenching it above that unruly nest of hair to pin him against the bookshelves — hard enough that Harry cried out — crushing himself against his Harry’s smaller, weaker body to make good use of his taller stature, ruthlessly stanching the white-hot curl of pleasure that erupted, unbidden, from the heady sensation of having his Harry so vulnerable, trapped beneath Tom’s superior height and weight as he was. Harry’s breath wafted across Tom’s chin and raised rippling gooseflesh across his skin; he looked down and drank in the lovely sight, the way Harry’s pupils had dilated until the black very nearly swallowed up all the green. _ Good _, Tom thought savagely. He rested his full mass against his Harry, as much to gather his faculties as to enhance the effect of his physicality. 

They remained pressed together for several long minutes: each panting into the suffocating, trifling distance between their bodies. Fabric brushed, rabbit-quick, against Tom’s chest; his Harry was hyperventilating. A fight-or-flight response. Unacceptable. 

He brought both hands up and brushed his fingers soothingly across Harry’s nape, where tantalizing skin was just barely visible beneath a mussed button-down, the crisp white fabric framing and offsetting delectable tan. Tom _ wanted _; he wanted to nip and lave at his Harry’s exposed flesh, just hard enough to leave a reddened mark, perhaps just barely breaking his boy’s pretty skin, to mark him so there could be no question to whom Harry belonged. 

“You can’t—” Harry stammered, voice made hoarse by fear. “You can’t just-—” 

“Shhh.” Tom reached for Harry’s collar: an anchor-point for Tom’s self-control. The shirt was one of his, and just a little too large for Harry’s slighter frame. The top three buttons had been left undone, exposing the delicious way Harry’s muscles tensed and flexed beneath tanned skin. A single droplet of sweat — not at all uncommon in the summer heat — trickled down the lovely, arced line of Harry’s neck and pooled at the base of his throat, unable to progress past the line of his collarbone. His Harry was a vision. Tom closed his eyes, as though depriving himself of his sight could aid him in repressing the primal desire to mouth at Harry’s golden skin and lick the salty sweat from the hollow of his throat. Through blind touch alone, Tom began doing up the buttons. 

Finally, finally, _ finally _ Harry exhaled. The gentle breeze of it washed over Tom and soothed his frayed nerves, pulled taut — almost to breaking — by the arduous task of self-imposed control. He reluctantly opened his lids to the sight of Harry’s own pleading green eyes. 

“Please..?” was the only thing Harry said. 

Damn him. 

Tom shoved at the bookshelf, removing the crush of his weight to allow Harry room to breathe, and turned from the all-too-alluring sight of Harry: wrecked and panting and debauched due to _ Tom’s _ ministrations. This was not the time. Not when he had frightened Harry badly enough that he would swallow his thrice-damned pride and _ beg _. He tamped down the sudden, unexpected surge of indignant rage: that Harry had seen fit to so debase himself for another man, even one as decrepit as Albus Dumbledore. 

“Fine,” he told Harry, curt, and stalked back to his desk to occupy himself with his massive workload in the hopes that he could purge his mind of these sordid thoughts of his little ingénu. He would need to rework the rituals to eradicate the possibility of Dumbledore’s meddling, and he still had a ceremony to adapt to Harry’s sunshine sensibilities. 

❦

“I might actually die of blue balls.” Ron recoiled in disgust at Harry’s pronouncement. 

“That’s gross, mate,” Ron muttered. Hermione, for her part, seemed to be studiously pretending that Harry hadn’t said a thing. “We don’t need to hear about your sex life with You-Know-Who.” 

“I practically begged him to fuck me against the bookshelf the other day,” and Harry was _ not _ whining. “I even wore one of his shirts and left it unbuttoned and everything. Ginny _ swore _ it would work!” 

“And why, in the name of Merlin’s saggy left ballsack, have you been asking my sister for advice about your sex life?!” 

Harry waved Ron off impatiently. “Because she’s better than all three of us put together at this sex thing.” Seeing the thundercloud rapidly forming on Ron’s face, he hurriedly added, “No, wait! I swear, there’s a reason for all of this.” 

“...and what’s that reason.” Ron said, with the flat tone of someone who’s resigned to being stuck with the worst best mate ever. Which was simply rude and completely uncalled-for. 

That said, Harry was actually rather taken aback that Ron was just going along with it. So he waffled: “Well, er... He’s just been so stressed out, and I wanna — I dunno — help him out with that, I guess,” and here he made an approximating and probably inappropriate gesture, if the way a nearby witch made a scandalised sound and hustled her child away was any indication. 

Ron lifted a skeptical ginger eyebrow. “You were _ just _ saying you were the one getting blue-balled,” he pointed out. 

“Brainbleach, I need brainbleach,” Hermione muttered under her breath, and Harry pouted. 

Hermione and Ron, of course, shared the duties as Harry's Witch & Wizard of Honor. Which really meant that they accompanied him for his stag do, since Tom was handling literally everything else. They went on a grand tour of all the Wizarding landmarks, starting at Diagon Alley and meandering all the way to Hogsmeade, where they even took a short detour to say hello to Hagrid at work. 

Well, that's what Tom _ thought _ Harry’d been up to, anyways. They had indeed gone to all those locations, but the aim had actually been to give their Death Eater-chaperone the slip. They managed that quite well by ducking out the back of the Hog's Head Inn with a spot of help from Aberforth, and then they really did stop by for tea (which was nice) and rockcakes (which weren't) with Hagrid. 

And if Harry departed from Hagrid's with a nondescript package, Tom would be none the wiser. 

Hermione and Ron, however, were. "I dunno, mate," Ron skeptically eyed Harry’s mokeskin pouch as they left Hagrid's hut, the man himself still cheerfully waving them off with Fang drooling loyally by his side. "It just doesn't seem like You-Know-Who would… Well, y'know. _ Like _ that sort of thing." 

"Why do you still call him You-Know-Who?" Harry asked mildly. "He doesn't really mind if you call him Tom, you know." 

"He doesn't mind when _ you _ call him Tom, Harry," Hermione corrected. "But he's still not above using the Unforgivables if anyone else calls him something other than Voldemort." 

"I can go as far as calling him The Dark Lord," Ron interjected, shivering slightly. Which was really a bit dramatic, Harry privately thought, since it was early July. "But anything else is…weird, y'know?" 

"Harry," Hermione said for what was probably the hundredth time, "you know you don't have to do this, right? I mean, it's the rest of your life!" 

"Just say the word," Ron declared staunchly. "We'll help you run away. You could just leave him at the altar." 

Harry shook his head, laughing, and watched affectionately as Ron and Hermione exchanged a worried glance. He had a plan of his own, after all, and the marriage was an integral part of it.

Tom had half a mind to do away with the entire ceremony, because Peter was about to get on his last nerve. 

"_ M-m-m-m-morsflorem _!" Peter squeaked with a wild flourish. Tom might have been amused but for the fact that Peter’s incompetence had nearly knocked one of the pixies out of the air. She fluttered a safe distance away to hide in a nearby spray of hydrangeas, a scowl disfiguring her fae face. It could take hours to coax her out now. 

Tom fingered his wand in a casual show of force. Lucius, who was nearby overseeing the delicate process of lowering the ceremony’s centerpiece to its position atop the principal dais, paled so thoroughly that his platinum-blonde hair looked vibrant in comparison. Tom studied Lucius as though he were a lacewing fly in a student's potion kit: the way he glanced over — clearly attempting to establish eye contact — to where Bella was conducting the flowers in singing rehearsal, their warbling tinny and shrill in a dreadfully apt caricature of her customary victims. 

Tom smirked. Before Lucius could intervene on the little rat’s behalf, he hissed: “Peter, come here.” His soft voice carried easily through the sudden hush that fell over the proceedings, and all his Death Eaters paused in their work to observe Peter’s fate. 

Pettigrew, bloodless and disgustingly pale, shuffled closer. Tom leveled his bone-white wand at the little man’s bulbous nose and smiled nastily, enjoying the way Peter’s yellowed eyes drew together in a cross-eyed panic. “_ Crucio. _” 

Luckily for Pettigrew, Draco’s report arrived at that very moment. Tom dangled his wand from his fingers, idly outlining Pettigrew’s seizing form with the tip, and unfolded the missive with his other hand. He scanned the letter’s contents impatiently: his mischievous fiancé seemed to think he had managed to escape Draco’s supervision in Hogsmeade, which was somewhat worrisome. What was Harry trying to hide? But Tom relaxed when he reached the end of the report, where there was a lengthy section relaying the details of Harry’s inexplicable decision to attend afternoon tea with that half-giant oaf. 

“M-m-m-my Lord! Have mercy!” 

He folded up the report with deliberate leisure, ignoring Pettigrew’s heart-rending pleas because it was a confirmed fact that he did not have a heart. He was in possession of a _ physical _ heart, but the point still stood that he lacked a _ metaphorical _ heart. Although…there was a distinct possibility that was also categorically untrue: he did have one of those, too. After a fashion. But said heart was currently gallivanting across Wizarding London, likely getting into all sorts of mischief, and at this juncture he rather thought he might be better off without that heart for all the undue stress and horrid _ emotions _. 

Specifically, the homicidally possessive sort. He _ was _ the Dark Lord. He tapped his wand against the side of his face, considering, and the idle motion inevitably released his curse. 

“M-My Lord! Thank you…Thank you!” 

“Stop distracting me,” he said, absentmindedly recasting as he spoke. While Peter writhed fitfully at his feet, already all but forgotten, he wondered just what his heart could possibly be up to.

❦

Harry was currently sweating inside the tiny ramshackle tent that served as a staging ground for the wedding procession and picking at the high neck of his dress robes. Why in Merlin’s name did Tom make it so tight?! He was honestly worried that he’d pass out on his way down the aisle. 

“It’s time,” a harried-looking usher ducked under the tent-flap to announce. Harry tried to muster up a bright smile for her, but she’d already gone by the time he’d worked his frozen facial muscles into a grin. He nervously flattened his hair and tried to summon some of that courage his house was supposed to have. It would be alright; everything would go smoothly. It had to. He awkwardly bent in half to inspect the sleeve of his robes yet again, quadruple-checking that the Secret Weapon was well-hidden. 

Well, he hoped everything went according to plan, anyways. He took a deep breath to steel himself, walked out of the tent into the bright July sunlight, and was immediately blinded. 

The first thing that came into view, after he’d blinked the sunspots out of his vision, was a vibrant arrangement of flowers. They were vivacious and colorful and singing with tiny, warbling little voices. He smiled, because it was nice. Cute, even. Trust Tom to pull out all the stops. Harry inhaled deeply, already feeling far more confident. It almost felt like Tom was by his side, providing his tacit support and buoying him with that iconic charisma. Harry straightened his back and turned towards the altar. 

Everyone he’d ever known (and quite a few people he didn’t) were in attendance, and it seemed that every single one of them was leaning over the bench-pews to catch a glimpse of him. Harry heard the telltale whooping and catcalling that spoke to Fred and George’s dubious presence. There was a loud sobbing that was certainly Mrs. Weasley. And louder than them all, why, that could only be Hagrid, who had apparently commandeered the wrappings from one of the singing flowers’ bouquets to blow his nose so loudly one would think that a stampede of Erumpents had charged into the reception. 

The Death Eater side, on the other hand, was far more reserved. Harry could hear Draco loudly bragging that he’d been charged with a personal assignment by the Dark Lord himself. Well, he _ had _ been loudly bragging before his gossiping abruptly sliced off. Harry snuck in a quick peek and sniggered quietly when he saw Draco opening and closing his mouth ineffectually, clearly as confused as his seat-mate (who, in addition to seeming just as confused, looked exceedingly grateful). Harry turned towards the central veranda, whose pale, wickedly-hooked spires rose high overhead, towering over the congregation and providing a supportive lattice for a veritable overgrowth of vibrantly blooming vines that seemed to reach for the open sky. Gathering his courage, Harry took his first step down the aisle. 

It was definitely odd, being catcalled on his right and facing stony silence on the left. A Death Eater, probably newly recruited and therefore overly excitable, actually drew her finger menacingly across her throat as Harry passed by, then promptly clutched at her throat. Harry raised an eyebrow and looked up at the central dais. Hermione and Ron were standing to the right and Lucius and Bellatrix were standing on the left, and both Bellatrix and Hermione were glaring venomous daggers while Lucius and Ron simply looked resigned to the foibles of life. Not that their squabbles really registered to Harry right now, because he was far too busy quirking an eyebrow at Tom, who— 

Quirked his unfairly elegant eyebrows back in innocent befuddlement. Harry would have snorted, but he was (thankfully) distracted by what Tom was _ wearing _ . He was in dress robes made of that same lovely velvet-red color Harry had so appreciated last winter at the Malfoy ball. Like, really appreciated. Appreciated so much that he’d let Tom take him by the hand and lead him into the gardens, where he’d thought to himself ‘ _ He can do whatever he wants to me _’ and he’d really believed it; he’d been ready to let Tom tear his clothes off with his teeth. 

And then Tom had gotten down on one knee, right there in the dirt of the Malfoy Manor gardens, and asked Harry to marry him. _ Swoon _. 

The flowers perched on the bench-pews rustled happily in response to Harry’s joy as he passed by, turning their petaled faces toward the nourishing sunlight and chorusing their welcome with an inspiring sort of unity, and Harry was much the same, gravitating towards Tom like binary stars locked in inextricable orbit. Tom was so stunningly bright; he blazed, blinding, like the very sun. Harry couldn't think of anything he wouldn't give to be with this wonderful man.

Things were going relatively smoothly. There had been a single cloud in the sky before Harry exited the tent, but Tom had banished it with a scowl. His Harry’s annoying little friends had proven themselves raucous and disrespectful, but Tom had known to expect that. At least his Death Eaters were suitably austere. Of course, that had been achieved through violent threats of bodily harm and well-placed curses, but _ details _. 

The important thing was Harry, walking down the aisle at long last after so many years of Tom’s scheming. Tom mentally congratulated himself: Harry’s willing compliance was well worth the endless hours spent drilling his incompetent followers. He tracked Harry’s movements hungrily; the dress robes he had chosen brought out the luminous green of Harry’s eyes and clung to his body in a way that was absolutely _ sinful _. He had selected the high-necked robes to cover as much of Harry’s enticing flesh as realistically possible from the attendees’ prying eyes, but he could only do so much to hide the artistry inherent to Harry’s lithe form, the effortless grace he was capable of. His Harry was a work of art this day, and Tom was very, very pleased with that work. 

Almost pleased enough to forget Dumbledore’s unwelcome presence as officiator. 

"My dear boys," he began, and Tom unhappily noted the way Harry seemed to hang onto the wizened milksop’s every word. He brushed his fingertips purposefully against Harry’s limp-fallen hand, to remind his soul where his allegiances ought lie. "When I first heard Sybil's prophecy, I was prepared for the worst." 

"Neither can live while the other survives, she told me, and like a fool: I only considered the ramifications," Dumbledore droned on, eyes glistening wetly with duplicitous tears. Tom wanted to snort rudely at the Shakespearean dramatics but restrained himself; he needed only to see this farce through to its indelible end, and then Harry would be forever his. "I never once considered that mere survival is not living." 

"But as you can well see," and here he addressed the audience at large, sweeping his hands with an overdramatic flourish and clearly milking the moment for all it was worth, the rotten, manipulative bastard. "These two binary souls have proven an old fool wrong." 

Tom had heard enough. He reached for Harry’s hand outright and ensnared his fingers.

Tom was looking uncomfortably chastised, so Harry reached for his hand and squeezed gently, hoping to remind Tom of his unconditional love. Then realized, in a panic, that he’d gripped Tom’s palm with his wand hand, which was currently holding Harry’s Secret Weapon. Shit. Shitshitshit. 

He stole a quick glance at Tom, but he was still staring at Dumbledore. Maybe he hadn’t noticed? Harry could roll with that. 

"But as you can well see, these two binary souls have proven an old fool wrong," Dumbledore was just telling everyone. Harry looked up into his mentor’s tired, wrinkled face and knew, without question, that the proud glow he saw there was for him. He beamed. "Love. Simply love, for all eternity. That is the only answer to Sybil's question." 

"I ask you, Tom Marvolo Riddle, to take Harry James Potter's hand in eternal, magical matrimony. To have and to hold, come what may." 

"I do," Tom answered in a deep, confident baritone, and the sound of his soulmate’s voice made Harry's head swell with love, almost to bursting. Ahem. Among…other parts of his body. 

"I ask you, Harry James Potter, to take Tom Marvolo Riddle's hand in eternal, magical matrimony. That your souls may live intertwined forevermore." 

_ Don’t fuck up don’t fuck up don’t fuck up. _"I do," Harry said, and didn’t even mess up once. He was so caught up by the thrill of excited adrenaline that…Oh! He clutched Tom’s hand tighter, The Thing sandwiched between their palms. With Dumbledore’s benedictions, it had already begun to warm up. Just a little more now… 

"Then I proclaim you wed, by Merlin and Morganna." Dumbledore lowered the Wand of Destiny, just barely resting it upon their conjoined hands. Tom’s free hand moved up, hovering by Harry's face, and it suddenly felt like the very air was being sucked out of Harry’s lungs. Harry stared up into Tom’s gleaming red eyes, doing his utmost best to focus on their hands and coaxing the banked flame into mounting higher and higher. 

It was flaring to full-fledged life, and Harry clung to the warmth resonating from their coupled palms; the same way their souls clung together, united by their shared history as petals to a single bloom and blossoming into fruition with the proclamation of their vows. He was so focused on that wonderful, effervescent feeling that he almost didn’t notice Tom lifting their interlocked hands high into the air at the exact moment that the warmth nestled between their palms crested and burst into golden threads of pure light, so fine that Harry only managed to see them because he had been looking for them. The dainty golden threads flowed, upwards and outwards, coalescing over the entire reception and dancing down, feather-light. 

The Witches and Wizards of Honor seemed to feel it first. Hermione's suspicious glare softened into the sort of face one might make at a litter of newborn kittens. Ron's mouth fell open, and then broadened into a rueful, embarrassed grin. Lucius's perennial stiffness relaxed imperceptibly, and he stretched out his wand arm like he was trying to cradle the lovely, otherworldly light in the palm of his hand. And Bellatrix, who had been on the verge of attacking Hermione outright, Tom’s imposing presence be damned: Bellatrix had turned her face upwards like a sunflower turning toward the sun, her normal demented rictus slackened into an expression of childlike wonder. 

Tom inclined his neck and Harry quivered with delight and anticipation: at the way Tom’s breath — the humid heat of it — ghosted across the sensitive skin of his lips. Time itself seemed to slow as Harry waited expectantly. The whole crowd had grown silent, like everybody was holding a single collective breath in unanimous solidarity. Harry didn’t dare look away from Tom’s searching gaze, those crimson irises glinting like sunlight. 

And then Tom's lips finally, finally descended upon Harry's chastely, more a gentle brushing between souls than anything, and Harry smiled into the kiss.

Tom tilted his head and exhaled so his breath would fan delicately over Harry's eyelashes, his nose, his lips. He was beside himself with triumph, and he wished to savor the moment. Let the entire world witness this claiming. 

As he captured Harry's lips, the seed of his ritual’s magic flared. The very air split apart, rent open by his mighty enchantment, which swept inexorably through the audience and _ conquered _ them all, forcing them to buckle under Tom’s overwhelming will. 

Perhaps the old fool was right after all, Tom mused, caught up in the throes of overpowering glee. This was Tom’s absolute victory; Harry would have no room leftover in his heart for any other emotion to take up residence. With this, it was checkmate. There would be only love left: the beginning, middle, and end of everything. Love, love, love. 

Tom watched, satisfied, as his enchanted flowers detached from their moorings on the pews and floated, weightless, into the sky above. They cascaded into an cataclysmic hurricane of violent hues, surging and roiling and spitting until they had formed the baleful contours of a floral Dark Mark. 

The lowly paeons broke into boisterous whoops and cheers, and Tom was just contemplating the benefits and drawbacks of silencing the rabble when Harry tugged at Tom’s sleeve distractingly. With a heartfelt sigh, he turned to indulge his soul. Harry opened his closed fist and Tom felt his eyes widen at what he saw lying nestled in the palm of Harry's hand like a secret, kept just for him. 

There, curling beautifully into Harry’s golden skin, was a single, fragile phoenix feather. 

Tom covered Harry's palm with his own, protecting the symbol of their brother wands’ shared cores. It was theirs, only theirs. He reeled Harry in, staking his claim with a searing, open-mouthed kiss designed to make Harry’s toes curl; Harry moaned softly and melted bonelessly and Tom smirked against his lips. 

"_ Morsflorem! _" Peter managed to shout with nary a stutter, and the sky above burst into light and swirling petals. And Tom watched, ravenous, as Harry laughed and laughed and laughed, giddy and drunk on Tom’s love, always and forever.

**Author's Note:**

> “Tom,” Harry shook his new husband awake. 
> 
> Bleary eyes glared open. “What.”
> 
> “There’s a Quidditch game in an hour. Want to go?”
> 
> “I take you on this lavish honeymoon, and all you want to do is watch Quidditch?”
> 
> Harry blinked, then nodded. “Yup,” he said. “What else is there even to do?”
> 
> Tom’s eyes narrowed. Then he surged up and pinned his love to the sheet. “I can think of a few things,” he murmured as his lips found their way to Harry’s throat.
> 
> Harry grinned.


End file.
